# Open Education- Get (or Is) Federated?
**URL:** https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346
**Category:** The Plaza
**Tags:** fediverse
**Created:** [November 2, 2022, 10:15pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346 "2022-11-02T22:15:05Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 10:15pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/1 "2022-11-02T22:15:05Z")
Are you tuned in to the [Fediverse](https://www.google.com/search?q=fediverse)?
There is much more to it than just the implications of Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter driving users to Mastodon
Should we [get federated](https://www.flickr.com/photos/cogdog/52473092593/)?
What does federated technologies/platforms mean for open education? Certainly @Mackiwg and the [OERu](https://oeru.org/) is well ahead of this curve.
@downes recently presented “[Open Learning in the Fediverse](https://www.downes.ca/cgi-bin/page.cgi?presentation=566)” (slides,video, transcript and more) at the 2022 Open Education Conference. Shall we ask Stephen to do a session or help guide some conversation here?
[ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVABY0DJCvk)
Who is thinking about this? What can we do to stay ahead of this curve?
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### Author:  [@davidp](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/davidp)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 10:35pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/2 "2022-11-02T22:35:30Z")
I like this idea. Totally support.
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### Author:  [@Mackiwg](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/Mackiwg)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 11:15pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/3 "2022-11-02T23:15:08Z")
@cogdog
I really like this idea 🕶 😇
The ability for individual institutions to reuse, remix and host federated open online courses (OER-enabled of course) is the strategic point of difference for open when compared to closed. The proprietary for-profit model needs centralization to create artificial scarcity to generate profit.
When we federate - we generate real competition, build diversity for resilience and have a fighting chance to ensure education as a public good.
Bring it on!
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### Author:  [@lightweight](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/lightweight)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 11:37pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/4 "2022-11-02T23:37:21Z")
Just seems to me like a return to the real essence of education - sharing freely without gatekeepers. Full agency for all involved, no permission required from ‘on high’ because the _is_ no ‘on high’. It’s just all of us, without 3rd party restraints and profit agendas. As you can imagine, I’m completely on board this bus!
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### Author:  [@cable](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cable)
#### Post date: [November 2, 2022, 11:41pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/5 "2022-11-02T23:41:58Z")
+1 This is definitely worth convening to discuss and learn.
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### Author:  [@stevefoerster](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/stevefoerster)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 12:52am UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/6 "2022-11-03T00:52:31Z")
Spectacular idea! I’ve long said any open movement worthy of the name will have a strong commitment to using open tools. The Fediverse is a great example of something that already exists that belongs in that toolbox.
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### Author:  [@Mackiwg](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/Mackiwg)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 2:31am UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/7 "2022-11-03T02:31:14Z")
> [@cogdog](#):
>
> Are you tuned in to the [Fediverse](https://www.google.com/search?q=fediverse)
Something to consider - on our Discourse instance, we have created a custom field for Mastodon username on the Profile page (see for example my [profile](https://forums.oeru.org/u/mackiwg/summary) on [forums.oeru.org](http://forums.oeru.org)).
This could help OEGlobal Connect users find each other in the Fediverse which can be a challenge.
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 5:33am UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/8 "2022-11-03T05:33:44Z")
Definitely doable, look for a new field soon. I feel like I’m always catching up with you, Wayne!
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### Author:  [@Mackiwg](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/Mackiwg)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 7:28am UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/9 "2022-11-03T07:28:36Z")
@cogdog
Your wizardry in bending the capabilities of the Discourse platform for innovation in service of Open Education is a major attraction of being part of this community. We’re learning lots about how to tweak Discourse (which we use ourselves) in the spirit of the great OER remix.
Keep innovating knowing we are going to hack your ideas :-).
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 5:48pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/10 "2022-11-03T17:48:53Z")
Thanks @cable – in typical style, I tossed an idea for which I have no plan or map. What would work? What could we do? There are so many elements to unravel.
Should we start with some collecting/listing of federated platforms/tools in use for open education?
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 5:58pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/11 "2022-11-03T17:58:37Z")
FWIW, I follow the work of Doug Belshaw who has been experimenting with and thinking about the fediverse a lot, e.g.
> **[The Fediverse is made up of cities, towns, and villages | Open Thinkering](https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2022/11/03/fediverse-cities-towns-villages/)**
>
> Keep the Fediverse weird
I gotta invite Doug into this space.
The idea is that rather than spending time just in the platform megacities, digital malls (aka [the Big Four?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Tech)) we can have a much more diverse landscape of towns, villages, cities that are still interconnected.
What does this thinking mean for open education and our platforms?
Also, Doug shared a better reference for The Fediverse
> **[fediverse.info](https://fediverse.info/)**
>
> The bespoke fediverse guide
I notice right away that their embedded video is from [Framatube](https://framatube.org/) a federated alternative to YouTube (making use of Peertube).
_Notice too how I get distracted out there on the web_
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:17pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/12 "2022-11-03T18:17:16Z")
It’s done!
[Edit your profile](https://connect.oeglobal.org/my/preferences/profile) to be like [mine](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog) to now add a Mastodon username (working to enable as icon)
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### Author:  [@stevefoerster](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/stevefoerster)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 6:31pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/13 "2022-11-03T18:31:23Z")
Neat, I’ve updated. 😀
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### Author:  [@lightweight](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/lightweight)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 7:50pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/14 "2022-11-03T19:50:08Z")
Nice! Updated mine… Given the newness of Mastodon, might it be worth including an example of what a ‘handle’ should look like: @username@instancename? Might it also be worth changing “Mastodon” to “Fediverse, (e.g. Mastodon, Pixelfed, Pleroma, etc.)”? 🙂
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### Author:  [@lightweight](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/lightweight)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 7:52pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/15 "2022-11-03T19:52:19Z")
Another useful Fediverse link, showing a good (but not exhaustive!) range of relevant “ActivityPub-enabled” apps: [https://fediverse.party](https://fediverse.party)
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### Author:  [@sushumna](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/sushumna)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 8:05pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/16 "2022-11-03T20:05:55Z")
Thank you, updated mine too!
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 8:10pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/17 "2022-11-03T20:10:05Z")
Thanks, Dave, great suggestions. Changed field name to “Fediverse User Name” and as suggested included example format.
I was worried that changing the label would disconnect entries, but Discourse is better than that!
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### Author:  [@Mackiwg](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/Mackiwg)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 9:13pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/18 "2022-11-03T21:13:49Z")
Much appreciated - updated.
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### Author:  [@cogdog](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/cogdog)
#### Post date: [November 3, 2022, 10:01pm UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/19 "2022-11-03T22:01:23Z")
I’m experimenting with the user field, I made it searchable, meaning one could query the users here for values in that field
It does not seem to be fully indexed yet as the [user search on “mastodon”](https://connect.oeglobal.org/search?expanded=true&q=mastodon&search_type=users) is showing only 2 results, whereas mine should be there was well all the throngs of people on [mastodone.oeru.org](http://mastodone.oeru.org)
Discourse has an impressive array of [expanded (aka advanced) search of topics, posts, users](https://connect.oeglobal.org/search?expanded=true) which is hidden under the 3 bar menu in the top search field.
What I am going to seek and ask the Discourse folks is somewhat of finding or generating a report on all users who have entered a handle there. It might mean some custom query stuff.
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### Author:  [@dajbelshaw](https://connect.oeglobal.org/u/dajbelshaw)
#### Post date: [November 4, 2022, 11:38am UTC](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346/20 "2022-11-04T11:38:47Z")
Hey all! Familiar faces here, and glad to be invited in by @cogdog. As I say in [that post](https://dougbelshaw.com/blog/2022/11/03/fediverse-cities-towns-villages/), the Fediverse is more than just Mastodon - in fact, the original vision for MoodleNet (RIP) was to build a social OER platform using ActivityPub, the protocol that makes the Fediverse work!
I’m involved with [Bonfire](https://bonfirenetworks.org) which is a ‘federated app toollkit’ that you can play around with [here](https://playground.bonfire.cafe/). It’s quite different to Mastodon (as are many other Fediverse platforms such as [Misskey](https://misskey-hub.net/en/).
Having deactivated my (verified!) Twitter account a year ago, I can hand-on-heart say that open educators should be on the Fediverse - as @Downes pointed out in his talk 🙂
[Next page](https://connect.oeglobal.org/t/open-education-get-or-is-federated/4346.md?page=2)